Extra passenger

I was called out pretty early this morning to look at a yearling filly that had slipped on the ice overnight sometime. I saw that it had a broken leg and after taking xrays we put her down. There are a lot of options anymore for broken legs on horses. It used to be that every horse with a broken leg was put down. Today there are many more options including casts, bone plating, bone screws, wire, etc. Its amazing what can be done.

After that, I had a calving call and drove to Medical Springs. It is a really pretty drive with a great view of the Eagle Cap mountain range. The drive home has a great view of the Blue mountains. I got to the ranch and found out the cow maybe started calving last night. The owner tried pulling the calf and couldn't and called for a c-section. After getting my hands dirty and assessing the situation, I knew that the calf was alive and in normal position for delivery. I was hooking on the ob chains and noticed that the right foot/leg was broken, completely from the ob chains. We pulled by hand and got the calf out in about 10 minutes. It was good to see because the cow and calf were alive. As for the broken leg, it needed immobilized, and a cast should work good. I don't carry casting supplies and we decided we should bring her into the clinic where we had all of the cast supplies.

We threw the calf in the front seat of my truck, which was not that easy. The tech with me had to ride home with a wet, bloody calf which kept sneezing on her. We got it back and put a nice cast on the leg. Hope it does well.

The rest of the day was a small animal day-ears, skin, spays, neuters, etc. We did get another calving call. This time the cow came to us. It was a downer cow who was pregnant. She had not dialated enough for a normal delivery so we did a c section. It was another fun one. We got 2 live births from the whole operation. Well have to see how the cow does. She should do good.